You do have a valid point but on the other hand, if you live in a place with no "real" winter it would probably mean you live in a warmer climate and have hotter springs/summers/falls so during these season you would still want a tyre with characteristics optimized for those seasons ----> a real summer tyre. With an all-season setup you would still have a bad setup throughout these seasons, dont you think?

All season tires, much like your 4 door sport sedan, is a compromise. Its not as good as summer or winter tires, but its design for a wider range of temp.

We get plenty of sub-freezing temps here in Dallas. I also occasionally drive to CO or NM for skiing. So just the other day I swapped out the Pirelli summer tires with Pirelli all-seasons. I have no safety concerns about driving on all-seasons year-round, even when it hits 105F (40C) here. It's what I have on the S2000 unless I'm at an autocross or track day. (In fact for sheer fun I prefer the all-seasons.)

(Anybody want to buy a set of 225/45/18 Pirelli P7 summers with only 3400 miles, mostly highway?)

That wasn´t the most clever answer, you wanna compromise with safety? I can compromise with two extra doors (plus the ass on my F31 wagon ) but I would never compromise with safety or traction.

If you dont want to compromise with safety, you should ride around in a snow mobile all winter, it has more traction in the snow than your BMW What you dont understand is that not everyone here is from Sweden. A lot of us are from warmer areas that only get a few inches of snow a year. In areas such as those, AWD with all season is fine and snow tires are over kill.

Who is talking about tires / tyres here? You can debate all you want for which rubber you like to kiss. Fact was that OP proved the OEM all season combined with xi set up worked in 10" of snow. Case closed!

Please don't patronize me about this as I coming from The proper RWD with snows in E46, E90 and X3 and X5 with all seasons for the wify.

Wify convinced me to try a F30 335xi with all seasons this time. So did I without monkey around tires and wheels package twice a year.

Why would anyone want to switch between all season tires and summer tires? If I were to go thru the trouble of switching between two sets of tires, it will be summer and winter tires.

Many models come with all-season tires, so you're kind of stuck right out of the gate. Keeping them on provides a compromise to performance for three of the four seasons. I'd rather take strides to maximize my enjoyment during those nine months. I notice the difference between performance summer tires and all-seasons, particularly in moving to a wider set that will provide better grip for braking and cornering.

In the winter, all-seasons provide less grip than winters, but are still more than manageable until they wear out, and then I'll replace them with winter tires on a square 225 setup.

I'd still buy a set of winter tires. They are magic compared to all-season tires in the snow & ice. I live in Minnesota as well and I will never go back to all-seasons in the winter, regardless of what car I drive (RWD, FWD or AWD).

I agree that in some parts of the US and Canada, winter tires are a must even with Xdrive! Here in Vancouver, we get on average maybe 2 days of snow on the road every year and the average winter daytime temperature is about 6 or 7 degrees celcius so all seasons with Xdrive is more than enough. If anything, with all the rain we get here in Vancouver you need a good rain tire here more than winter tires.......

I live in Seattle and I think the xdrive does well in snow but miserable on iced over roads. I had a 2006 325xi and it was pretty dicey at times.......and I learned to drive on ice in a Camaro....in Canada. I would recommend snow tires if you are going to be running into constant ice through winter.

Many models come with all-season tires, so you're kind of stuck right out of the gate. Keeping them on provides a compromise to performance for three of the four seasons. I'd rather take strides to maximize my enjoyment during those nine months. I notice the difference between performance summer tires and all-seasons, particularly in moving to a wider set that will provide better grip for braking and cornering.

In the winter, all-seasons provide less grip than winters, but are still more than manageable until they wear out, and then I'll replace them with winter tires on a square 225 setup.

Many models come with all-season tires, so you're kind of stuck right out of the gate. Keeping them on provides a compromise to performance for three of the four seasons. I'd rather take strides to maximize my enjoyment during those nine months. I notice the difference between performance summer tires and all-seasons, particularly in moving to a wider set that will provide better grip for braking and cornering.

In the winter, all-seasons provide less grip than winters, but are still more than manageable until they wear out, and then I'll replace them with winter tires on a square 225 setup.

If you really care that much about performance and like to push your BMW to the tire's limits, then you should probably get a RWD BMW that comes with summer tires.

If you really care that much about performance and like to push your BMW to the tire's limits, then you should probably get a RWD BMW that comes with summer tires.

A couple disparate points:

1) I live at the end of nearly four miles of dirt/mud/slush/snow/ice out in the country, making RWD less practical for me.

2) An AWD vehicle is quite capable of pushing to the tire's limits. However, that was never my point. My point was to further enhance the performance of the vehicle I have, and summer tires will aid that cause. Higher performance tires increase braking potential, cornering potential, and acceleration potential (enlarging the traction circle), regardless of the particular drivetrain.

I would have preferred that my vehicle came with summer tires, but it's much easier to change the tires than the drivetrain. Actually, I would have preferred my vehicle come with WINTER tires on the stocker 18" wheels, and I would get my own 18's or 19's in the size and configuration I want, shod with good performance tires.

1) I live at the end of nearly four miles of dirt/mud/slush/snow/ice out in the country, making RWD less practical for me.

2) An AWD vehicle is quite capable of pushing to the tire's limits. However, that was never my point. My point was to further enhance the performance of the vehicle I have, and summer tires will aid that cause. Higher performance tires increase braking potential, cornering potential, and acceleration potential (enlarging the traction circle), regardless of the particular drivetrain.

I would have preferred that my vehicle came with summer tires, but it's much easier to change the tires than the drivetrain. Actually, I would have preferred my vehicle come with WINTER tires on the stocker 18" wheels, and I would get my own 18's or 19's in the size and configuration I want, shod with good performance tires.

1) Sounds like you need a truck more than you need a BMW

2) And snow tires will enhance performance in the snow. If you are going to swap out tires anyways, just go with summer and winter instead of summer and all season.

3) I dont think you can buy a BMW with winter tires but you can buy one with summer tires.

BMW has been making AWD cars since the 1980s. I think we're kind of past the "only RWD BMWs are real BMWs" thing. Especially since 99% of the people complaining bout AWD have never driven an F30 xDrive in the first place.

I live in Seattle and I think the xdrive does well in snow but miserable on iced over roads. I had a 2006 325xi and it was pretty dicey at times.......and I learned to drive on ice in a Camaro....in Canada. I would recommend snow tires if you are going to be running into constant ice through winter.

I don't know about Seattle but here in Vancouver as of today, we have not had 1 day this year where the temperature has been below freezing. Today's long term 2 week forecast until the end of December does not have 1 night time low below freezing and average daytime highs of 6 or 7 degrees.

Besides a big snow dump 4 years ago it seems like the weather patterns are changing and the weather is getting warmer and wetter here in Vancouver. We may have an occasional rare clear cold snap in the winter and then it warms up and rains for 2 weeks. We have a full set of winter tires for my wife's MDX that has not even been put on yet and it looks like there will be no need to put them on until at least January and even if we have put them on they are usually off for the season by the middle or end of February. Around here the noisy, sloppy, poor handling winter tires are usally a waste for our warm wet winters. Talking to the guys at my tire store last year they said that it as been so warm here in Vancouver over the past few years that it is killing their high profit winter tire business.........

My vehicle came with all-season Pirellis. I'm hoping to add a summer set of wheels and tires (a wider set), and use my all-seasons in the winter until they wear out, when I'll replace with proper winter tires for winter.

I prefer using high performance tires when I can, and proper winter tires in the winter.

It depends what the seasons are like where you are. I'm sure that in Sweden using anything but real snow tires in the winter is brutally stupid. In places where snow is infrequent and light you have more margin of error in tire selection. Specialized tires are clearly the best for whatever season they're made for of course.

You do have a valid point but on the other hand, if you live in a place with no "real" winter it would probably mean you live in a warmer climate and have hotter springs/summers/falls so during these season you would still want a tyre with characteristics optimized for those seasons ----> a real summer tyre. With an all-season setup you would still have a bad setup throughout these seasons, dont you think?

Not necessarily a true assumption. I live in NorCal where commuting I've seldom seen temperatures below 50 F. However I can drive 20 miles to a mountain where when it rains there's slush and ice everywhere and summer tires are like ice skates. Or I can drive 4 hours to Tahoe and even if there isn't snow, the temperatures drop below freezing at night.

Even around here there's a good argument for getting summer biases all seasons like Conti DWSes or Bridgestone Potenza RE970s... The sacrifice in performance is not terribly noticeable unless you always drive your car at the limit of adhesion and it saves you from investing in winter tires that you might only use a few days per year.